Halloween Party Snacks for Kids (adaptable to any holiday)

22 Oct

THIS IS A REBLOG! NOTE TO READERS: Ahead of Halloween, here are a few ideas for kid party fun from last year…I did NOT focus on the healthy stuff. Maybe I’ll do better this year?

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My friends greeted the news with gasps. With disbelief. With wide-eyed incredulity.

Yes, it was true. I actually bought a loaf of sliced white bread last week, smeared it with variations of cream cheese, jelly and butter and served it to my son. I also bought cupcake mix from a box AND, horror of all horrors, two tubs of pre-made icing with all manner of indecipherable ingredients written on the side by the (seriously?) “nutrition” information. I had my reasons. And I have no regrets.

Halloween is Leandro’s favorite, number one, most-anticipated holiday, so we invited a few of his beastie besties for a Halloween get-together on the Sunday afternoon before Halloween. Between goody bag decorating, scavenger hunts, and cupcake decorating, I felt like I had the activities covered, but it was a challenge to make good-looking seasonal stuff that would impress the moms, be attractive to the kids and…

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Almost Instant Bruschetta (Quickie tomato spread)

18 Oct

Got a tomato and some day-old bread?

Swirl around to soften and Bob's your uncle!

Swirl around to soften and Bob’s your uncle!

Use it up deliciously and look fab doing it.

A lovely way to start a meal (or grate some cheese over and call it a movie snack)

A lovely way to start a meal (or grate some cheese over and call it a movie snack)

Ingredients:

1 tsp extra virgin olive oil (plus more for drizzling)

A few ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped

1 or two cloves garlic minced

Day-old bread, sliced and lightly toasted

Salt to taste

Directions:

Heat oil in a skillet. Toss in tomatoes and garlic and stir around at medium until skins begin to separate. Spread on toasts. Sprinkle with salt. Serve.

Glow!

Glow!

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Summer Tomato Recipe (or just chop fresh tomatoes over warm pasta and you’re done!)

16 Oct

We won’t be eating this light and fresh summer way much longer.

The little man and I pulled out the tomato plants today. They could have stayed in a bit longer and we might have had a few more vine-ripened tomatoes, but he took off all the little greenies (“39, Mom! I picked 39 tomatoes!”), holding up his shirt hem to make an impromptu bag for them, while I folded the netting (okay, attempted to fold the netting and then just balled it all up because it was making me crazy) and then he pulled out all the plants (about ten) I threw them in the leaf compost and we called it an afternoon. After a summer of garden disasters, the pounds and pounds of tomatoes we got from our ten plants was a true joy. And I have several quarts of sauce and puree in the freezer for later!

Light and beautiful, any kind of tomatoes will do, as long as they are garden fresh!

Light and beautiful, any kind of tomatoes will do, as long as they are garden fresh!

My dad (he of the crazy-ass mostly vegan diet) just had surgery for bladder cancer last week, so we’ve been very, very busy with other things, not least of which is preparing food for everyone so that we all continue to eat well and keep up our strength while we work on his recuperation and everything else (like work — fullltime and freelance — and school and soccer and violin — and on and on). So yes, the healing and kitchen are going great guns, but the writing is not.

So this is not even a recipe, but a solution. Boil pasta in generously salted water and drain, reserving 1/4 Cup of pasta water.. Chop up fresh tomatoes and toss them into the pasta with a splash of olive oil, a splash of pasta water, a couple of basil leaves if you’ve got and maybe some finely minced garlic. Serve with grated cheese/a sprinkle of salt, Or not. Eat. Move on to the next thing and try not to mourn the end of the summer tomatoes. Save your seeds and plant more next year!

From my garden. I love this moment of the harvest season, when you realize it's almost over and therefore appreciate these flavors that much more.

From my garden. I love this moment of the harvest season, when you realize it’s almost over and therefore appreciate these flavors that much more.

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Provenςal Vegetable Tian (a magnificent summer vegetable send-off!)

12 Oct

It was a recipe I’d been saving for just such a moment. It was stuck to the fridge with a magnet, getting spotty with splashes and splatters from the sink, wrinkly from the vapors of steaming pots and sizzling pans.

The olives provide proper punctuation to the vegetables.

The olives provide proper punctuation to the vegetables.

It was one of those tear-out recipe cards from a Martha Stewart magazine, so of course the picture was luscious and perfect in that casual, unstudied, flooded with natural light, Hamptons kind of way that makes you want to chuck out all your furniture and start over with a fresh new color scheme that changes with every season so that your perfect children are filled with wonder and delight every time they come back from their posh boarding school for a long weekend with their equally perfect friends.

Ergo, when the moment came and I had my opportunity to emulate those graceful denizens of the airy heights of impeccable style in my own small way, well of course I had to seize it!

From my garden. I love this moment of the harvest season, when you realize it's almost over and therefore appreciate these flavors that much more.

From my garden. I love this moment of the harvest season, when you realize it’s almost over and therefore appreciate these flavors that much more.

Piles of late summer vegetables were languishing (I think this new world of mine needs to “languish” a lot, don’t you?) on the counter, in need of some using. And as it happens, they were just the vegetables I needed for that bloody vegetable tian Martha recipe that has been languishing on my fridge for two years like an accusation. And as it happens, the recipe was pretty easy, as long as you are somewhat competent with a knife. It didn’t require anything odd or fashionable. Continue reading →

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And another award-winner: My Banana Bread (with Chocolate Chips)!

3 Oct

I shared with you the great news of Leandro’s first place win for Oatmeal Walnut Cranberry Chocolate Chip Cookies at the Long Island Fair. Now I will share my more modest triumph…my banana bread took second place in the adult class!

Chocolate chips give it that extra prize-winning appeal....

Chocolate chips give it that extra prize-winning appeal….

My banana bread is very moist and banana-y, because I take any bananas that have gone too ripe for pleasant eating (as in the peel is black and the flesh is mushy and getting brown), peel and freeze them in a resealable bag until I have enough for banana bread. So the sugars are really present and there is quite a bit of juice.

I have been terribly busy — too busy to sit down and write something more substantive — so I’ll keep it short and give you the recipe, which is sure to become a go-to for you!

Slice and freeze for great lunchbox stuffers

Slice and freeze for great lunchbox stuffers

Banana Chocolate Chip Quick Bread

6 overripe bananas

1 Cup sugar (1/2 light brown and ½ white)

2 eggs, beaten

½ Cup vegetable oil

2 Cups flour (1/2 whole wheat, ½ white all purpose)

1 tsp baking soda

¼ tsp salt

1 Cup bittersweet chocolate morsels

Preheat oven to 350°. Mash bananas in mixing bowl. Add sugar, eggs and oil, one at a time, mixing well with each addition. Sift dry ingredients together and add to banana mixture. Fold in chocolate morsels. Pour in four greased mini- loaf pans and bake 55-60 minutes, or until a knife inserted in the middle comes out clean.

Second place for me

Second place for me

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Three common ingredients = one uncommonly good pasta sauce, FAST

30 Sep

NOTE TO READERS: In honor of the passing of the Queen of the Italian Kitchen, Marcella Hazan, I reblog one the many go-to recipes I learned from her book Essentials of Classic Italian Cooking. As it happens, I had made it yesterday before I had gotten the sad news. Mille Grazie, Marcella!

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So we spent another evening in the emergency room and Leandro got another four stitches, this time in the forehead. With that kind of excitement going on, you can be sure that once the chocolate ice cream dinner for brave boys was up, I was STILL going to be too tired for anything elaborate in the kitchen.

Marcella Hazan to the rescue. This queen of the kitchen’s Essentials of Italian Cuisine is a much loved and much soiled recipe book over here. These days I don’t have the resources for some of the more ambitious dishes, but her tomato sauce with onion and butter is simple and perfect: three ingredients resulting in one glorious, sweet, rich sauce that you barely have to stir!

I have adapted it slightly to make it even faster (puree, rather than whole tomatoes, adjusted the butter, for example). The beauty of this one is that it can be done…

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Award-Winning! YES, Leandro’s Oatmeal Cookies Take First Prize!

29 Sep

We shouted! We hooted! We jumped up and down! (Mommy even got a little misty)

The winner!

The winner! Note blue ribbon in the background!

Leandro’s Oatmeal Cranberry Walnut Chocolate Chip Drop Cookies took first prize in the Junior culinary class at the Long Island Fair!

We were completely surprised, because we had made a solemn decision that we didn’t care whether our submissions won. We just wanted our admission tickets (one per submission) and we wanted to be a part of it. We like our own baked goods and we like baking together and winning or losing wouldn’t change that.And then he won!

The calm before the storm. The gorgeous Fair building

The calm before the storm. The gorgeous Fair building

We are, of course, very excited, and we are, of course, sharing the recipe. And of course, we had a marvellous day at the fair with Lori, Brendan, Kate, Abu, Padushi, Madrina, and Betsy. It is always a wonderful time and there is one more day left if you haven’t made it yet!

Makes big batches!

Makes big batches!

Leandro’s Prize-Winning Oatmeal, Chocolate Chip, Cranberry, Walnut Cookies

½ Cup plus 6 Tbs butter, softened

¾ firmly packed brown sugar (I like to mix dark and light brown, but use whatever is on hand)

½ cup granulated sugar

2 eggs

1 tsp vanilla

1 ½ Cups unbleached all-purpose flour

1 tsp baking soda

1 tsp ground cinnamon

¼ tsp salt

3 Cups quick or old-fashioned oats

½ Cup bittersweet chocolate morsels

½ Cup dried cranberries

¾ Cup coarsely chopped walnuts

Preheat oven to 350°. In a large bowl, beat butter and sugars until blended and kind of creamy (I don’t have an electric mixer – yet—so I just use a big fork). Add eggs and vanilla and beat well. In a separate bowl combine flour, baking soda, cinnamon and salt. Then add the oats and the fruit and nuts and mix well until all the oats are damp.

Drop rounded tablespoons of dough on ungreased cookie sheets and bake for 10-12 minutes or until light brown. After a minute cooling on the baking sheets, move the cookies to wire cooling racks and cool completely. Store in tightly covered containers.

The right way to celebrate at a fall county fair!

The right way to celebrate at a fall county fair!

You may also like: Oatmeal Chocolate Chip Cookies

 

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Entomophagy (or I Ate Crickets for My Birthday)

28 Sep

Eighty percent of the world’s countries include insects in their diet. Yes, even you, although it might be more by accident or ignorance than design!

Entomophagy is the ingestion of insects for food (deliberate as opposed to the odd bug that flies down your throat when you are riding a bicycle, I suppose).

For more incidental entomophagy, try this HuffPost article on some of the more common bugs that are allowed in your food. Or read this Insects As Food blog post for more on what bugs people eat on purpose. Bugs are also recommended as an alternative food source by the U.N. (although something tells me they weren’t serving crickets on a stick at the recent General Assembly in N.Y.)

So when one of the contestants at a recent Latino Lover magazine ceviche throwdown I attended offered crispy crickets as a ceviche topping, the girls from Puerto Rico – Ada, Jocelyn, Paola, and me — looked at each other for about a half-second and dug right in.

Don't judge 'em 'till you've tried 'em

Don’t judge ’em ’till you’ve tried ’em

They were crunchy! They were salty! They were good!

They perfectly set off the watermelon in the ceviche and they were pretty good plain too, washed down with a fresh Albariño as per Paola and I…Ada and Jocelyn went for the beer instead. So yes, we ate crickets and liked them a whole lot (admittedly, we had to set aside the ones whose antennae/leggy bits were just too, well insect-y to actually put in our mouths).

So, what did I have for dinner on the eve of my birthday? Bugs! Hurray for an old dog being fearless about new tricks!

Me and Maricel...planning a trip to Zafra/Cucharamama in Hobeken very soon!

Me and Maricel…planning a trip to Zafra/Cucharamama in Hobeken very soon!

The winners of the contest were not at all the ones I liked…Toloache was tops for me…and yes, that was the one with the crickets and watermelon. Thanks to the girls for a great birthday…highlighted by running into my dear friend Maricel Presilla — restaurateur and food historian (see her books on chocolate and Latin food or visit her artisanal, pan-Latino Hoboken restaurants: Cucharamama and Zafra!).

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Finally! A Quicky and Easy Falafel Recipe Worth Sharing!

24 Sep

Falafel is one of my favorite dishes in the world. These fried Mediterranean chick pea (we call them garbanzos in Spanish) balls are not supposed to be hard to make, but I have struggled mightily with one recipe after another, unable to get one that was crunchy outside, creamy yet nutty inside, that would hold together nicely for me in the pan.

Into the frying pan....

Into the frying pan….

Until now.

I freely admit that I used beans from a can. I have tried and tried to make them by soaking dried chick peas. I hated the grainy texture of the few that didn’t completely disintegrate in the skillet. Using canned chick peas is a small defeat on the path to greater victory. I didn’t even riff off any particular recipe…I just combined flavors that had worked out in the past with techniques that had sort of worked out, and went for the can opener for my main ingredient.

Sometimes spelled felafel, I like mine golden and very creamy inside.

Sometimes spelled felafel, I like mine golden and very creamy inside.

Pedro of the “mostly vegan except when it’s not” crazy-ass diet loved them. Leandro of the “I hate garbanzos because I don’t like the way they look” declaration loved them. My unpredictable mother, Myrna, loved them. And I loved them too (and I was really the one that mattered in this pursuit of perfection). I hope you will too! This is a recipe for a small amount…so you can give them a shot if you’re new to falafel and then double the recipe once you are hooked! Click on for fabulously simple recipe….plus a quickie tahini sauce for topping Continue reading →

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French Toast-ed Croissant and Apple Sandwiches

21 Sep

After our last very successful French toast adventure, my friend Pam suggested we try French toast croissants.

How pretty are these local eggs (from Makinajian Poultry Farm in East Northport area)

How pretty are these local eggs (from Makinajian Poultry Farm in East Northport area)

As I had mini-croissants in the fridge, I thought that was a fine idea! She also mentioned that she uses any leftovers for lunchbox sandwiches and that got me to thinking…how can I pump up the nutrition and texture…and maybe convince my son to eat sandwiches (which would be an easier lunch solution for me!).

French toast croissants are pretty good without the apple too!

French toast croissants are pretty good without the apple too!

So, I split the croissants and gave them tth French toast treatment, drizzled with maple syrup and cinnamon and stuffed with thinly-sliced apple. The result was like an apple turnover, without the extra sugar and with a lot more crunch. I am sure if you are a peanut butter family, a good schmear would be tasty, as would cream cheese!

A delicious autumn breakfast

A delicious autumn breakfast

French Toast Croissant and Apple Sandwiches

1-2 Tbs butter

3 eggs

¼ Cup milk

12 mini-croissants (or 4-6 standard size), split

Maple syrup

Cinnamon

1 apple, cored and sliced thin (peeled or unpeeled is up to you)

Melt the butter in a skillet at medium to medium high.

Beat the eggs and milk together on plate or bowl that is wide enough to accommodate a split croissant, but won’t spill over.

Dip each croissant in the egg mixture on both sides just before placing in the skillet (do not soak the bread). Cook about two minutes on each side. Drizzle with maple syrup and sprinkle with cinnamon. Place a thin layer of apple on one side, close up the sandwich and eat!

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