This Year, Everyone’s Sitting at the Kiddie Table!
When we go back to our big family get togethers in the States, I still feel as if I’m sitting at the kiddie table, no matter how old I get. I think it has to do with the fact that my parents’ extended families are large in number whereas I’m “only” one of two children, with “only” two children of my own. The older I get, though, the more I want to celebrate this feeling.
A few weeks ago, a friend of mine posted a link to a photo from Country Living entitled “Embrace the Idea of a Kid’s Table.” By this, the editors of the magazine meant that you should make your holiday kiddie table fun and exciting for the little ones. They dressed up a kid-sized art-table for Thanksgiving by covering it in brown craft paper, setting out cups of crayons, and drawing “frames” beneath each place setting in black pen. Pretty plates, a little fruit, and large print place cards set the tone for a fun space for the kids to eat their Turkey and to draw some turkeys, too.
Taking the idea of “Embracing the Idea of a Kid’s Table” to the next level, I decided to set the table for our entire family’s [Canadian] Thanksgiving Feast in a similar manner. [We do our dinner on the holiday Saturday as opposed to the Sunday, so as to enjoy our left-overs all weekend long.] My daughter and I picked up a roll of brown craft/packaging paper and a thick black marker at the dollar store. We used the box top from one of her holiday barbies, of all things, to trace out a rectangle at each place setting. Then, we gave each person a customized “place mat” by adding different edges to each rectangle. Some were simple swirls or triangles. For our special guests, the grandparents, we drew a 3D-ish book of award winning poems and a fancy crackle-edged photograph “held down” by photo corners. Instead of making separate place cards [too fussy for us], we wrote each guest’s name beside their drawn-in placemat/frame. And we set a couple of markers and coloured pencils in a cup in the centre of the table. Et voila! This year, everyone sat at the kiddie table. And we all had a marvelous time!
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Eat This(,) Chicken!
My kids don’t have adventurous tastes when it comes to the dinner menu. I’ve been trying to cook more weeknight meals at home. Lately, I’ve transformed one of the kids’ favourite Sunday Suppers into a fuss-free weeknight meal. My Eat This(,) Chicken! is a streamlined version of Ina Garten’s Engagement Roast Chicken. While it takes at least 40 minutes to roast, I have whittled down the prep time and the time making the gravy and slicing the chicken to about 15 minutes in total. The kids acually eat this(,) chicken! and sometimes, they even eat it with the gravy. Although, I have to say, I like it when they skip the sauce, so that my husband and I have more for ourselves. Yes, it’s THAT good!
EAT THIS(,) CHICKEN!
Quick and Easy Roasted Chicken with Lemon Onion Gravy
inspired by Ina Garten
serves a family of four for one meal
[with maybe an extra lunch for a busy parent the next day]
Ingredients
1 whole chicken, from 1.3- 2.3 kg or 3-5 lbs
1 extra-large sweet onion, thick-sliced
1 lemon, .25-.5 in off of the top and bottom cut off and reserved, the rest (skin on) sliced into 6ths
1 head garlic, sliced in half across the thickest part
olive oil
pepper
salt
1 tbs all-purpose flour or alternative thickener of your choice
1 cup chicken stock [or water and .5-1 cube bouillon]
OR
1/2 cup white wine and 1/2 cup chicken stock [or water and .5 cube bouilon]
Method
Heat your oven to 425 F.
In a small roasting pan, toss sliced onions, 5/6 of the lemon slices, salt, pepper, and about 1 tbs olive oil to coat.
Disseminate coated onions and lemons evenly across the pan.
As carefully as possible, clean your chicken and pat it dry.
Stuff the chicken cavity with the reserved top and bottom of the lemon, the last 1/6 of the lemon, and the garlic halves.
Place your stuffed chicken on top of the onion and lemon mixture.
Wash your hands and your kitchen surfaces like crazy.
Pour a bit of olive oil over the top of the chicken and use a brush to coat the chicken with the oil.
Sprinkle pepper and a bit of salt over the top of the chicken.
Wash your hands and your surfaces like crazy, once again.
Roast the chicken for 45-75 minutes, depending upon the chicken’s size.
The breast should read 155F and the leg and thigh should read 180F.
Remove the chicken from the pan of onions, lemons and drippings and let it rest on a cutting board.
Remove the 5/6 lemon segments from the pan and compost/discard them.
Add your broth [or water/bouillon] and [optional wine] to the pan of onions and drippings.
Set this pan over medium-high heat.
Using a wooden spoon or flat whisk, pick up the brown and burnt bits from the side of the pan.
Add a tablespoon of flour (shake or even sift it over the gravy to avoid lumps) to thicken the mixture.
Cook until the broth and onions begin to form a thick-ish gravy.
Pour the gravy and onions into a small bowl or gravy boat.
[Use a sieve to separate the gravy from the onions if you would like to serve them separately.]
Remove the garlic and lemon bits from the inside of the chicken and compost/discard them.
Slice the chicken and serve with the gravy.
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Cheater’s Curry
Sweet Potato, Butternut Squash, and Cauliflower [or Green Bean] Curry
I had assumed that the notion of “nesting” had gone out the window once we carried our second child into the house. However, when I found myself with a day surgery scheduled for mid-week, and with a few days of recovery planned at home, I suddenly felt the impulse to stock up the freezer once again! Towards the end of my two pregnancies, I went for “fancy” meals like boeuf bourguignon and cognac-laced chicken pot-pie, and I took my sweet time preparing them from scratch for the deep freeze. After all, I had a doctoral thesis to finish…I needed to procrastinate! This time, I had little time or energy to do anything but get some family friendly basics into the fridge. The kids helped get their favourites ready to go, helping me prepare several bags of pre-marinated proteins for the freezer. Then, while they joined their father in very generously cleaning the house from top to bottom, I made a huge batch of mild chicken soup for before and after the (necessary) procedure. I also wanted to have a more sophisticated veggie curry for when the sun shines brighter and I start to feel tip-top. So, with little time to spare, I transformed an old favourite recipe I had come up with a few years ago into a faster, easier savoury treat: Cheater’s Curry.
Everything here is canned, pre-packaged or pre-chopped. I’m not usually a fan of convenience cooking, especially when this includes pre-cut and wastefully packaged vegetables. However, my hands blow up when I touch the outside of a butternut squash, no matter how organic, so I find the pre-packaged and pre-cut squash a real salvation. And, I’m having the kids work on repurposing the plastic packages we used. Of course, you can “upscale” this recipe by buying fresh veggies and doing your own chopping, as I do most of the time.
Cheater’s Curry
Makes a large dutch oven full…
Ingredients
2 tsp olive oil
1 cup pre-diced onions, or 1 medium sized sweet onion, diced
1 tbs ras el hanout, red curry powder, or garam masala
1 tbs red curry paste
1 tbs chopped garlic
1 can tomato paste
2 cans coconut milk
2 tbs brown sugar or honey (optional)
2 tbs fish sauce
4 cups (1 pound) peeled and pre-diced butternut squash
4 cups (1 pound) peeled and pre-diced sweet potatoes
4 cups cauliflower (fresh or frozen) OR 1 bag ready to cook green beans
A handful of fresh cilantro or thai basil, torn (optional).
A handful of peanuts (optional).
Sriracha or other Chili Sauce (optional)
Serve alone or with quinoa, rice, or flat bread.
Method
In a large stock pot or dutch oven, heat oil over medium-high heat.
Add onions and sweat for 3-4 minutes.
Add spice blend, garlic, and curry paste, and stir for 2 minutes more.
Add tomato paste and coconut milk and stir to combine.
Add sugar (optional) and fish sauce.
Add diced sweet potatoes and bring to a boil.
Simmer on MEDIUM heat for 3-5 minutes
Add butternut squash and bring back to a boil.
Simmer on LOW heat for 15 more minutes.
Add cauliflower or beans.
Simmer for 5-10 minutes, or until the potatoes and squash are heated through.
Ladle into bowls or cool and place into containers for freezing.
Garnish hot bowls of curry with a generous amount of torn cilantro or thai basil.
Throw a few peanuts on the top.
Let each family member or guest add Sriracha or another Chili Sauce to their dishes to taste.
Serve alone or with quinoa, rice, or flat bread.
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Sunday Suppers: A Chinese New Year Feast
January 21, 2012
Pork Potstickers : General Tso’s Chicken : Kung Pao Shrimp
WELCOME BACK!
We’ve been on a bit of a hiatus since our Advent Shadowbox 2011 extravaganza.
We thought it was about time to let you in on our Family New Year’s Resolution for 2012:
Build More Family Traditions & Strengthen The Ones Already In Place
This January, we wanted to begin by instituting or re-instituting our traditional, formal Sunday Suppers. We can’t claim to have any family china or silver of note, nor do we really care about such things. Still, we have been “prettying” things up a bit by actually ironing our cloth napkins and dolling up the table with ribbons and a smattering of half-spent candles. For the first two weeks, the meals centered around one-pot family stews. The challenge of this resolution, after all, was going to be to please the picky eaters without having to substitute hot dogs and salami from the fridge for the main course! So, for our first weekend, we decided to go French by trying Julia Child’s famous Boeuf Bourguignon. The kids like beef, so we figured it would make for a good start. I’m not a huge mushroom fan, but I found the results absolutely fantastic. (If you’re going to use an entire bottle of good red wine in a recipe, the stew better be well worth it! ) The kids did a masterful job finishing their plates. Having hit on a winner for the first week, Bea insisted, in French (so how could we deny her?), that we continue to “go French.” So, we chose to follow the proceeding recipe in Child’s book, Beef & Onions Braised in Beer, substituing a favourite bottle of German Weiss beer for the required Pilsner. The recipe calls for approximately 3 lbs of beef, and I have to say I am absolutely scandalized by how little was left in the pot for Monday night “parents’ leftovers.” That meal was miraculous. I know everyone makes a big deal about the Bourg, but seriously, this second stew is far and away the classic we’ll keep coming back to in our home. So far, so good.
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Our Chinese New Year Plans:
Pork Potstickers, General Tso’s Chicken, and Kung Pao Shrimp
This Sunday, we’ll be taking a little leave from our adventures in French stews. Since the kids were babies, we’ve always made a big fuss over Chinese New Year. It provides a second chance for resolution-making, of course. And, at least for the years in which the kids were tiny babes, it seemed a great excuse to order from our favourite Hakka Chinese place. Over the past few years, though, we’ve been doing more of our Chinese New Year cooking at home. We even have a special set of “Chinese New Year Plates” we picked up at an off-season sale several years ago. (So, this must be a big deal! The only other “seasonal” dishes we own are the ”Cookies and Milk for Santa” cup and plate from the local dollar store!)
Now, I enjoy baking (witness the Chocolate Mini-Cupcake Dragons I whipped up for the Feast, above), but I can’t say that I’m much of a chef, especially when it comes to the kinds of fantastic authentic cuisines we can find, easily enough, in local Toronto restaurants. Also, I’m incredibly wary of frying. I wish I could say this was due to health concerns. My unfortunate anxiety stems from a childhood memory: one night, as I was standing outside in our backyard, my mother ran out onto the porch, screaming over a pot of smoking oil, having burnt an entire batch of cannolli shells. So, aside from the great event of frying up my grandmother’s famous Egpplant Parm in a very shallow puddle of oil, Chinese New Year is pretty much the only occasion for which I’ll heat a few extra inches of oil in the skillet. Even so, we’ve tried to opt for low-oil options wherever possible. And we cook sans wok, as said metal belly full of joy would merely appear as kitchen decor for the remaining 364 (or, as this is a leap year, 365) days.
This weekend, the kids have been super-jazzed about the New Year. They’ve spent their Saturday making “backdrops” (see above and below) and “music” for a video drama they have planned to film about the “First Chinese New Year” – a story which includes a giant monster who is frightened away by the colour red. They’ve also ferreted out the few recipes I’ve jotted down on a few sheets of yellow legal paper over the years. The Pork Potstickers below are cribbed from a phone conversation with my step-mom from several years ago. (My thanks and, also, my apologies for this likely bastardization of the little bits of heaven I can get when I’m in Cali). I’m fairly sure the General Tso’s Chicken recipe is something I copied out of a newspaper during grad school in Chicago. (Lucy Waverman had a nice looking recipe for General Tso Sweetbreads in today’s Globe and Mail which could also be tweaked to taste.) And, the Kung Pao Shrimp is an uber-simplified version of a chef’s 3-wok recipe from a favourite restaurant that closed not long ago. We can’t claim much expertise here. But we’d love some feedback on how to improve upon and perfect these dishes!!! The recipes below will make enough food for a large Sunday Supper and anywhere from 1 to 3 nights of left-overs for a family of four.
Here’s our Festive Spread:
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Ingredients
1 lb ground pork
1/2 bunch of green onions
12-14 water chestnuts from a can, about 1/2 the can, finely diced
2-3 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs fish sauce
2 tsp minced ginger (optional)
1-2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tsp sesame oil
pepper
1 package dumpling wrappers
Water
Vegetable oil for cooking
Dipping Sauce:
1/4 c rice vinegar
1/3 c soy sauce
1/4 c sliced green onions or cilantro
1 tbs sesame oil
1 tsp minced garlic (optional)
1/2 tsp red pepper flakes or siracha hot sauce to taste
1 .3-in slice fresh ginger, minced (optional)
1 tbs dark, gluten-based chinese vinegar (optional)
Method
Mix pork, onion, water chestnuts, soy sauce, ginger (optional), garlic, sesame oil.
Season with pepper.
Place a spoonful of this mixture towards the center of one half moon/triangle of a wrapper.
Use water to slightly moisten the semi-circular or triangular edge of the half of the wrapper you have just filled.
Fold the empty half of the wrapper over and crimp or pleat the edges lightly to seal.
Stand the dumplings up so that they look like little old-ladies’ purses.
Freeze extras in batches of 16 or 20. Cook the rest.
Heat a bit of oil in a large pan (or a few pans).
Fry the dumplings for 1-3 minutes until golden brown on the bottom.
Add 1/3-1/2 cup of water to the pan, cover, and cook at medium heat for 3-5 minutes.
Remove the lid and simmer low for 1-2 more minutes.
Drain or dry on a rack or towel if so desired.
Combine all ingredients for the Dipping Sauce and serve in a bowl beside the postickers.
January 2009
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General Tso’s Chicken
Ingredients
Final Sauce
1 can chicken broth
3/4 c brown sugar
1/2 c soy sauce
1/3 c cornstarch
1/4 c rice vinegar
1/4 c dry white wine
1 tbs sesame oil
1/4 c water
2 tsp minced garlic
1 .2-in slice ginger, minced
orange or lemon zest (optional)
Sticky Marinade*
1/4 c soy sauce
1 egg
3/4-1 c cornstarch
*OR OPTION TWO: salt, pepper, optional flour, and optional egg
Basics
2.5 lb boneless skinless chicken breasts, cut into 1 inch cubes
1 bunch green onions, sliced
6-8 dried red chiles (remove seeds unless you like it hot)
Vegetable Oil
1/4 c Gently Toasted Sesame Seeds or Almonds (optional)
Method
Combine all Sauce ingredients and set aside.
EITHER
Mix the Sticky Marinade in a large ziploc-style bag or glass bowl and ADD ALL CHICKEN PIECES AT ONCE.
Remove the pieces one at a time, shaking off excess marinade and setting them on a plate.
FRY OR SAUTE CHICKEN as below.
OR
Coat chicken in salt, pepper. Optional: dredge in flour or egg and flour. SAUTE, DO NOT FRY chicken, as below.
EITHER
FRY 10-12 marinated pieces of chicken at a time in a pan of 350 oil
OR
SAUTE the marinated or flour-coated chicken in batches in a large pan lightly coated in oil.
Drain chicken on a wire rack set over a pan in a slightly warm oven.
Add a tablespoon or so of oil to a large, clean pan and cook the onions and peppers for a minute.
Add the sauce to the pan and simmer until thick enough to coat a spoon, or just a little thicker…
Add sauce to chicken to cover. Stir quickly to coat.
NEW NOTE: There might be quite a lot of additional sauce. Store to use over other recipes.
Garnish with toasted sesame seeds or almonds and additional bits of green onion if so desired.
Serve immediately!
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Kung Pao Shrimp
Ingredients
1 lb peeled, deveined raw shrimp
Marinade
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tsp rice vinegar
1 tsp water or orange juice
1 tsp corn starch
The Rest
vegetable oil
6-8 dried red chiles, sliced, seeds removed
1 tbs soy sauce
1 tbs wine or dark, gluten-based chinese vinegar
1 tbs brown sugar
2 tsp sesame oil
1-2 tsp cornstarch
1 bunch green onions
(white parts sliced thin & separated from slightly thicker-sliced greens)
2 garlic cloves, finely diced
1 .2-in slice of ginger, minced (optional)
1/2 can thin-sliced waterchestnuts leftover from the potstickers (optional)
1/2-1 cup chopped peanuts, preferably roasted (or honey roasted) and/or toasted coconut
Method
Combine Marinade ingredients in a ziplock-style bag or bowl.
Marinate shrimp for 30 minutes.
Add 1-2 tbs oil to pan.
As oil heats just slightly, mix soy, vinegar, sesame oil, sugar, and starch in a small bowl and set aside.
Cook chiles for 1 minute.
Add marinated shrimp and cook 1 minute.
Add white onion slices, garlic, ginger, cook 1 minute.
Optional: Add sliced waterchestnuts, cook 1 minute.
Add small bowl of soy, vinegar etc to pan and cook until thick, 2-6 minutes.
Warm the nuts and/or coconut for a minute or so in a separate pan if so desired.
Plate the stir fry and garnish with green onions, peanuts and/or coconut.
Kung Hei Fat Choi!
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Our Sister Site: Summer of Funner
- The Lunchbox Season is Back
- Summer of Funner 2012 Film Festival
- Peach Day! Amaretto Peach Jam, Brown Sugar Vanilla Jam, and Giant Peach Butter
- A Movable Mural
- The Imaginary Beasts of Riverdale Farm
- Mad Scientist Day 2012: Ten “Sweet” Experiments
- The Kids Make Street Eats (with Beer!): Pilsner Pretzels & Hops and Robbers Mustard
- Glam Cans 2012: Kid-Designed Canning Labels DIY
