Happy birthday!

Apparently I am late to the party. I didn't even realize it has been a year that I have been documenting our dining habits. Oy vey! Thankfully it is still fun and I won't be stopping anytime soon as I am always finding new 'favorite' foods for my kids.

Green chile

We love making green chile in our crockpot. It is a great recipe for a potluck or for a cold winters night when bellies need warming. It is easy to prep in the morning and have ready after a busy day of fun. The ingredients are all easy to find in the winter if you like me, buy a half bushel of roasted peppers late summer and freeze them in bags for use all year. The rest should be in any larder.

This is based on a dish I used to order when I lived in NYC from a place near my work called Lupe's East L.A. Kitchen. Like most Mexican restaurants in NYC there were just a few things that were good and the rest was typical bad NY Mexican. Their best things were cheese/onion enchiladas with mole and their vegetarian green chile. Here is my rendition of their chile. For this version I decided to add celery on a whim, while good, it made it more vegetable stew-like than the previous times I have made this. Omit the celery unless you really love vegetable stew.

potatoes, carrots, onions, roasted chiles, garlic, cumin, oil, salt, pepper, veggie stock, and maybe celery

chop your onions and carrots

start them in the crockpot on high with oil and cumin
let them cook about 10 minutes

meanwhile peel and seed your chiles

dice the chiles and defrost your veggie stock

peel and chop your potatoes

soak potatoes briefly to remove a layer of starch otherwise the chile is too starchy

once onions start to crisp stir in your garlic and chiles

then add potatoes, salt, pepper, and stock or water to cover

cover and let cook at least five hours

an hour before serving remove some veggies and mash and return to pot - I do two mortars

serve with warm tortillas, sour cream or supreme, onions, cilantro, avocado, more hot sauce

Enjoy!

Chocolate strawberries

Every Easter the Easter Bunny gives my three children chocolate bunnies in their baskets. Early on I taught them that we can eat a little of that bunny, but then we save the rest for strawberry season to make chocolate covered strawberries. It is the gift that keeps on giving. This isn't actually hard as said bunny is nice enough to leave other yummy chocolate things to tide them through the day, especially during the egg hunt.

This year my eldest didn't even touch his bunny, so now we are going to make two batches, one with his and the one here with the headless bunnies from my younger two. This recipe is so simple it is hard not to keep making it all through strawberry season if you have chocolate on hand. These must be eaten the day they are made. Once you have dipped that strawberry it isn't going to last even if you refrigerate it.

headless bunnies and strawberries, nothing more

wash and dry your strawberries prepare your drying pan

you will need to butcher the bunnies

then add to a bowl over hot water (medium heat is good)

stir until chocolate is melted

then proceed to dip strawberries, try to keep it light, too much chocolate is a bad thing here

let dry completely, I hide them in the oven from little hands

then eat, preferably outside if you have ravenous chocolate monsters like I do

Most yummy!

Golden curry

I have been experimenting with my slow cooker and my go to recipes. It is nice to be able to make something we love to eat and not have to tend it. Golden curry is a good one for the crockpot, the vegetables are supposed to be well cooked, the curry gets fully incorporated into everything and the flavors are all yummy together. Maybe one day I will make my own curry, but for now I buy the japanese curry cubes from my local asian market. Because we have kids we get the mild curry, before kids we bought the hot cubes. I did not have any mock duck (wheat gluten in a can) on hand, which goes really well in this dish, but next time I will make sure. Also daikon is a must for this dish.

You can serve this with rice or noodles. We happen to have had rice the past two nights, so I went for noodles. If you do use rice, cook it separately not in the curry like the noodles. I pre-heat my crockpot on high with oil in it to saute the onions first. It works pretty well to set them so they don't fall apart. This recipe is a stick to your ribs recipe good for cold days or hungry boys.

fresh frozen hubbard, daikon, carrots, potatoes, onions, garlic, oil, salt, stock, and curry cubes

peel and cube your potatoes, chop everything else

saute chopped onions and garlic in oil (ie put in for 10 minutes)

stir in potatoes and let cook a few minutes

then add carrots, daikon, and curry cubes

fill to top with water or stock, add salt and let cook at least 6 hours

5 minutes before serving add noodles

they will cook fairly fast,

serve as is or with grilled tofu

Enjoy!

Potato pancakes

Happy Easter! Happy Passover!

Here is a recipe from my grandmother. Growing up we would always know when she was making potato pancakes as she would start the grating first thing in the morning and do it throughout the day as it can be tedious. She would always be feeding at least 8-10 people for each meal so she needed 3xs as many potatoes. We loved these so much and I am planning on instilling that love in my children. It took me years to get the real recipe out of my grandmother, which involved sitting in her kitchen and trying to make them with her there so she could correct me. She even has a spoon from her wedding set that she uses to pour the exact right amount of batter. She has put my name on the spoon for the future as I am the only one who makes the pancakes in the family.

Now, I have modified the recipe here a bit as my husband grew up eating a latke like potato pancake and he did not absolutely love these the first time I made them. It all depends on what you grow up with, but I am slowly converting him and adding less and less potato shreds. If you want to make these vegan add a little soy milk in place of the eggs to help bind the flour. Also note my grandmother would grate everything by hand, including the onions! Thank heavens for food processors.

potatoes, onion, eggs, flour, salt, pepper, and oil for frying

peel your potatoes and onions

shred one potato and put in a bowl with water, or omit and box it like the rest for the real deal

grate the onion in the processor to save your eyes

now for the hard part, box grate the rest of the potatoes into mush

mix in eggs, salt, and pepper

squeeze dry the shreds if using and add with flour to the mix

stir and let sit, if you have this much water after an hour you need more flour,
the batter should be runny, but not liquid

now spread them out on an oiled fry pan, you will need to use a spoon to get them the right thickness

flip once when nicely browned

serve with butter, salt, pepper, ketchup, hot sauce, applesauce, and any variation of the above

Best served hot of the griddle!

Applesauce

Ever since we started having a winter fruit CSA we haven't ever bought applesauce. It is pretty easy to make and one thing being a parent, kids tend to eat apple slices until they start to brown and then stop. Just take those slices and throw them in the freezer until you have enough for a batch of applesauce. This batch I made fresh as I needed it for dinner, but most of the time it is from frozen abandoned slices. If you make a really big batch, just freeze it in pint jars and defrost as needed.

apples, cinnamon, lemon, vanilla, and salt

slice your apples (or use frozen miscellany)

drop into a pot with cinnamon and a dash of salt

add a touch of water so they don't burn before the apples release enough juice

cover and cook on low until apples are soft

once soft add vanilla and lemon

then blend up well

then serve as is or with potato pancakes

Enjoy!