The Reluctant Mommy Blogger

So jazzed that I finally got my 2010 Joy Troupe cookbook "More Please, Mommy! A family cookbook." I got four copies; one for myself, my mom, my sister and my aunt. I'm really excited because this is the first year there are pics of my kids in the books. Last year we were moving and I just couldn't get my act together to submit pics. This year the book is riddled with images of Trent and Hunter. Meghan did a fantastic job on the book, as usual. If you want to get a copy you can go here: Cookbook

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We went to a very cool winery over the weekend and had a fantastic time! I think Garrick and I will be making more visits there in the future. To learn more go to Winery at La Grange.

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I found a great blog when looking for a sweet potato pancake recipe this morning. Totally adding it to the blog roll. She hasn’t updated in a while, I hope she does again soon!

Sweet Potato Pancakes

October 13, 2007 at 3:46 pm | Posted in Family Meals, breakfast, sweet potato puree | 1 Comment
Tags: Family Meals
It’s Saturday morning, and we are able to have a nice, leisurly morning. I let my hubby sleep in and get up with the kids. Around 8am, my son starts asking for breakfast, and I really want to try to create something close to the original, so I try Sweet Potato Pancakes.

I take out the sweet potato puree I have frozen and thaw it in the microwave. Next, I whip up the pancakes. Super easy, and because of the sweet potato, I only use one egg.

Sweet Potato Pancakes

• 2 cups Bisquick Mix
• 1 egg
• 1/2 cup sweet potato puree
• 1 1/2 cup milk
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon
• 1/8 tsp nutmeg

Mix the Bisquick, egg, sweet potato puree, milk cinnamon and nutmeg. Whip until smooth. Pour on a hot griddle and enjoy!

As you can see, these have some color, but it is very neutral, good for my, “I only eat white foods” son. The sweet potato has disappeared into the pancake. To help with the color and taste, I told my kids that these are cinnamon pancakes with a little nutmeg. They bought it and ate them up.

For the sweet potato puree I microwave cooked the sweet potatoes until they could be pierced with a knife. I trimmed the ends, put them (skin and all) into my food processor and pureed until smooth. I stored the sweet potato puree in 1/2 cup amounts in a snack size ziploc and stored them in the freezer.

Why sweet potatoes? According to Deceptively Delicious, “Sweet potatoes help stabilize kids’ blood sugar levels by providing soluble fiber. And they’re good for skin, eyes, and all-over good health because they’re rich in beta carotene and other antioxidants.”

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I have been watching a lot of documentaries about our food industry the past few days. While I have known for a while what a nightmare it is, I finally got disgusted enough to say no to buying my meat at the grocery store. I still have to go through the entire freezer filled with beef and pork, but we ran out of chicken. So yesterday I called and ordered three dozen eggs and one whole and one half chicken from a local free-range farm. I am so excited to try everything out! The whole chicken will probably go straight into the freezer, but I think I’ll prepare the half one on Sunday. I hope that they will have my order when I pick it up at the Farmer’s Market on Sunday. They asked me to email my order, but I never received a response back…

Anyways, here’s the site of the farm I’m ordering from: Smith Family Farm

Update September 23, 2010: I was so bummed on Sunday when I went to pick up my chicken and eggs and the stand wasn’t there. We spoke with the other meat stand at our local Farmer’s Market and they said they hadn’t seen the Smith Family stand in a few weeks. Since Smith Farm is having an open house this weekend I think we will be making a trip out there….

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A couple weeks ago I had some left over chicken and rice so I decided to make chicken fried rice. This was to prove to be a difficult task as I didn’t own a proper wok and had to use one of my regular frying pans. So on Thursday I went to Ikea and bought myself a new wok and made tofu fried rice that night! It was awesome! So much easier to cook rice with. I wouldn’t have been in such a hurry to buy a wok except that when I made that chicken fried rice I discovered that Hunter LOVES the stuff. I do believe that fried rice is about to become a staple in our house. Hunter eats the stuff like it was going out of style!

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A couple of weeks ago Garrick took Trent to go and see the new Iron Man movie after he got home from work. So, it was just the baby and I to cook dinner for. I was really jazzed about this because Hunter is much easier to cook for then Trent is. I also had some asparagus to use up and Garrick doesn’t really like that. I proceeded to cook a nice non-meat dish for Hunter and myself. I had two boxes of pasta that were a quarter full that have been sitting in my cabinet for months, so I went ahead and used those up. I threw the asparagus in the water with the bowties and elbows and while those cooked I took a half a stick of butter and melted it in a small pan, threw in some very thinly sliced red onion and garlic, added some vinho verde and cooked it down nicely. Next I opened a can of Cannellini beans, rinsed them and threw them into my butter mixture and finished that off with some fresh Basil and Mint. After I drained the pasta and asparagus, I combined everything. It turned out so amazing! The baby and I feasted. Hoorah for experiments in the kitchen!

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I grew up in upstate New York. I am white. As a result it had never before occurred to me that I could make my own tortillas on taco night. There has been many a night when my husband and I would say “Let’s make tacos! Oh wait, we have no tortillas and I don’t feel like going to the store….”

I’m not sure where I got the idea from, but all of a sudden, last month I decided to try making some for myself. I did an internet search, found a recipe and started making them. They are so much better than the store bought stuff! It took me a little while to figure out how to properly roll them out, but once I got the hang of it they were pretty easy. I felt so proud of myself for making them, I don’t think I will ever by the stuff from the store again. The recipe I used came from Texas Rolling Pins.

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I realized that I have been baking way too many sweets lately. I made my chocolate chip cookies and had absolutely zero self control in regards to eating them. That was about a week and half or two weeks ago and I haven’t made any cookies since, but I want to so badly, I can practically taste those buttery, chocolatey cookies right now….

Anyway, since I have not been baking sweets, I still have a major sweet tooth that cannot seem to be ignored. Enter, once again, the Jessica Seinfeld “Deceptively Delicious” cook book. She has a recipe for ice cream sandwiches in there that I figured I would give a go at. It’s made with yogurt, buttermilk, lemons and graham crackers and they are absolutely fantastic! I cannot stop eating them, and I don’t feel bad because they are mostly yogurt. I need to make another batch I think…

My biggest problem with the recipe is the freezing times that it gives. The book says it should take an hour and a half for your yogurt mixture to freeze. Wow, was that one waaaaaaaay off. I waited almost five hours for it to freeze properly, and it still could have gone just a little longer. Since I had started making them in the evening, I was up late and couldn’t wait any longer for the mix to freeze to the proper consistency.

So, to overview, ice cream sandwiches; good. Directions on how to make them; bad.

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I like yogurt. I like the kind that comes in the little cups at the store. You know, the ones that have too much sugar and have yummy flavors like blueberry and cherry-pineapple. I do have a pet-peeve about yogurt, though. For some reason, it makes me absolutely mental when the companies that make yogurt put the fruit on the bottom of the cup. I HATE it. So much.

I mean really. Why? Why do that? It must save on cost or something. Instead of mixing all the fruit and sugar into the yogurt, they just put some on the bottom and the yogurt goes on top and I guess it saves a couple of cents? Too me, that’s just lazy. If I am paying money for the yogurt, I don’t want to have the to do the work of mixing it myself. The way I see it, that’s part of what I am paying for, not having to do the work.

Speaking of paying, did you ever notice that the yogurt that does have the fruit on the bottom is usually smaller AND more expensive then, say, the store brand that already has all the fruit mixed in? The store brand cups are usually some where between six and eight ounces and the name brand crap is usually four to six ounces. It also seems to be the only kind that you can buy, as well. When I go to the grocery store, if I’m not buying the store brand stuff I REALLY have to search for something that already has the fruit mixed in. What gives??

There is one more thing that really irks me about fruit on the bottom yogurt. It’s the stupidest thing, really, but bothers me none the less. I hate that when you have to stir up the fruit the yogurt gets all over the handle of the spoon. I don’t know why that bothers me so much, but it is probably the one that bothers me the most.

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So the kids have been sick for the past two weeks. Trent the first week, and Hunter the second. In addition to being sick, poor Hunter was cutting six teeth. I couldn’t do anything because all he wanted to do was nurse. Thank goodness they are both finally feeling better.

Today I have been playing catch up with my organization duties as leader of my Mommies group. I wasn’t able to post anything at all, or email any of my members, because I couldn’t type. I could look at stuff, but with Hunter in one arm it was impossible to do any sort of corresponding or updating. I still have a bunch of things I have to do, but for the most part I am now all caught up with everything, emailing people back and getting events up on my groups calender.

It has been pretty nice here the past couple of days and it is supposed to stay the same tomorrow. Since we’ve been cooped up for so long, I decided to take the kids outside tomorrow. We’re going to check out this neat play ground that I have been hearing a lot about since we have moved to our new neighborhood. I’ll take pictures tomorrow and try and write a review of the place. I’m really excited to get Trent out of the house, because he needs it badly. He hasn’t been good about taking his naps or going to bed, and I know it is because he has too much energy. Tomorrow he shouldn’t have any problems.

I’m also catching up with feeding my family. I have been struggling getting food on the table these past weeks, can you guess why? Anyway, I was at least able to get good nutritious food made every night, even if Trent won’t eat it. This weekend, though, I was able to finally sit down and make puree’s for baby food and to cook with! I have the Jessica Seinfeld “Deceptively Delicious” cookbook and I have been wanting to utilize it forever, I just never had the time to actually make the purees to make the recipes. I made up a ton of purees over the weekend and I am going to start using them this week in recipes. Tomorrow I am making the banana bread with cauliflower puree and the spaghetti pie with carrot and broccoli purees.

I was really excited to make the puree’s because I was using the new rice maker and hand mixer that I got for Christmas. I got the exact rice cooker that I posted about a couple of months ago, and let me tell you it is AWESOME! It has a retractable cord, I can set it to start cooking at a certain time, it has a slow cooking option. This thing is fantastic! I used it steam all my veggies over the weekend and then used my new hand blender to puree them. The hand blender is great too. It only has one speed, but it works so well that it doesn’t even matter. The feature that I like the best is that the stick detaches and can go in the dish washer. Rad!

Well, I have a lot more stuff that I could write about in this post, but I think it’s getting a little late. I can always write another post tomorrow!

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